["Servo and Motion Control" magazine] STEP is an excellent company that has expanded from the elevator control industry into the fields of intelligent drive control, robotics and intelligent manufacturing. As the founder and president of the company, Gidefa, who is nearly 70 years old, is still an important He called the development of STEP in the industrial automation industry as the "second" entrepreneurship of the company. Facing the new journey, although the market is changing and technology is changing with each passing day, STEP's dedication to product technology research and development has not changed at all. Especially for the motion control business sector within the group, after a period of integration, the core brand "STEP (STEP)" and its sub-brands "Singriner", "All for Xing", "Zhishanzhi" have been integrated Control" and so on, a brand-new "STEP" is emerging in China's motion control industry, and strives to become an important force in the industry.

Gidefa, Founder and President of Shanghai STEP Electric Co., Ltd.

01 Adhering to the "gene" of automation

Gidefa, who graduated from Shandong University, seized the opportunity in the wave of reforms to improve the quality of the domestic elevator industry in the early 1990s and founded STEP. Starting from the transformation of old elevator technology, it has gradually developed into a leading enterprise in China's elevator control industry. The elevator control system produced by the company has been at the forefront of the industry in terms of innovative technology. A number of elevator safety control technologies independently developed by STEP in the elevator industry have become industry benchmarks and have made outstanding contributions to the development of China's elevator industry.

While achieving these achievements, aiming at the opportunity of transformation and upgrading of China's manufacturing industry in 2012, STEP quickly entered the industrial robot and intelligent manufacturing market. Talking about the decision made by the company at the time, Gidefa said: "Development is the top priority of the company. I majored in automation, and my research topic as a graduate student was modern control theory and its application, covering a wide range of topics, such as elevator control, robotics , Internet/IoT technologies are included. STEP has been cultivating and accumulating in the development of automation technology for many years. It can be said that automation is the core 'gene' of STEP; and robots are mechatronics products in automation. For us, we have already been familiar with it, so, under the premise of industry-related, market demand, and technical strength, we took advantage of the opportunity to enter the industrial robot market, and a new round of entrepreneurship in the field of intelligent manufacturing is inevitable."

In fact, STEP is one of the local companies that entered the field of robot manufacturing earlier. However, in the past few years, the sustained and rapid growth of China's economy has triggered a boom in the development of the robot industry. STEP also went through a detour, resulting in a lot of investment in STEP robots, but it was unable to achieve profitability.

After calming down, Gidefa thought deeply about the future development of the STEP robotics business. He found that with the rapid evolution of the domestic market in recent years, the characteristics of user needs have changed significantly. In the past, the supply was insufficient, and the main appeal was to meet the demand; but now, entering the stage of oversupply, meeting the demand is no longer the main appeal. Only high-quality, high-reliability, and high-value products can be based on market.

Looking back on the entrepreneurial history in the elevator industry, it is precisely because STEP chose the unique development path of independent research and development to provide safe, high-quality and reliable controller products for the market, which has achieved the vigorous development of China's elevators today and helped China's real estate market. Nowadays, facing the emerging market of robots, Gidefa's goal is also to give full play to the advantages of STEP's own automation "gene", consolidate the core technology foundation, and embark on a road of persistent innovation. "We have achieved success in the elevator industry, but there is still a long way to go in the industrial automation industry. Therefore, we internally call the development of the enterprise in the industrial automation industry a 'secondary' entrepreneurship. In the process, STEP must truly become stronger and bigger through technological innovation.” He said.

02 Integrated development of operation and control products

Extending from elevator control to intelligent manufacturing fields such as robots and intelligent production lines has brought new challenges to STEP's development of automation technology. Especially motion control technology, which is directly related to the motion speed, motion position and torque control ability of robots and intelligent production equipment. To achieve high-quality, high-reliability system application effects, it is necessary to do in-depth research on motion control technology. Research. For this reason, after successfully landing on the SME Board of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2010, through a series of capital operations, STEP has successively acquired Shenzhen Zhongweixing Technology Co., Ltd., Hangzhou Zhishan Zhikong Technology Co., Ltd. Control the layout in the industry.

Gidefa said: "Servo drive and motion control technology play an important role in modern manufacturing, and these contents themselves are an important direction of STEP's technology research and development. As one of the key components of the robot system, motion control is based on the 'position' As the main control object, the system is required to quickly complete the specified action and reach a predetermined position. From the perspective of the mathematical model, the motion control system adds a position loop to the general transmission control system, the technology is more complicated, and the variable parameters involved are more complex. Many, the development of the entire software architecture is also more difficult. Only with a strong mathematical foundation and modern control theory foundation can we make truly exquisite and extreme motion control products. For robots, in addition to position control, dynamics, Coordinated control in kinematics is even more difficult. No matter how you look at it, whether it is elevators, transportation control, or robots, it is inseparable from mathematics, automatic control theory, modern control theory, and Computer control technology."

The currently established STEP operation and control business department takes "STEP (STEP)" as the core leading brand, and its sub-brands "Singlina", "Zhongweixing" and "Zhishan Zhikong" are respectively responsible for the business operation and management of different product lines. market expansion. STEP Headquarters is a well-known brand of intelligent control in China and a leading enterprise in intelligent manufacturing comprehensive solutions; Zhongweixing is an excellent provider of motion control solutions in China, and the SCARA developed by it for electronic product assembly has a relatively obvious position in the market Zhishan Zhikong focuses on the research and development of all-digital intelligent servo technology, and has the ability to provide exclusive customized solutions for motion control for smart factories and smart equipment. The combination of strong and strong achieves high-quality goods. The development goal of the STEP motion control segment is to gradually build "STEP (STEP)" into one of the leading brands in the domestic motion control industry through the integration of the core brand and various sub-brands. At this stage, with the help of the integration of the advantageous resources of various brands, we are constantly pursuing the ultimate quality in algorithms, software, machinery, electrical and other links. On the one hand, it provides strong technical support for other businesses such as the group's robots and intelligent production lines. ; On the other hand, in the face of the vast industrial automation market, it has also expanded a new business development path.

03 Step by step, dreams come true

With a flick of a finger, STEP has gone through 25 years of development. From a small company in an ordinary residential building, it has gradually grown to become the number one tax-paying industrial enterprise in Jiading District, Shanghai, and then successfully listed. The chairman of the Jiading District Federation of Industry and Commerce and the vice chairman of the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce and other positions, the corporate value has been widely recognized by the society. Looking back on the past, as the founder of the company, Gidefa has a profound experience: the success of STEP has been achieved step by step. Enterprise development must have dreams, but if you just think about it without doing it, you will never succeed; Do it down-to-earth, maybe you will have a chance of success. Step by step, dreams come true, step by step, dreams come true! ——This is a summary of the development of STEP, and it is also the core embodiment of the enterprise spirit.

China is already a world-recognized manufacturing powerhouse. However, due to insufficient innovation capability and relatively low level of manufacturing methods, it is not yet a manufacturing powerhouse. Realizing the "dream of a strong country" made in China is a common dream of all industrial people. Standing at a new starting point, STEP is also endowed with a new corporate development vision and grand blueprint.

From the serious impact of the new crown virus epidemic on the overall industrial chain in the first half of this year, Gidefa has seen the urgency of transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry. "The spreading global epidemic is not only a disaster, but also a war. It brings people a lot of reflection. Under the current pattern of global industrial chain integration, the role of people in the entire production and circulation link is still very important , through big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, intelligent manufacturing and other emerging technologies, it is the general trend to gradually reduce the dependence on manpower, ensure the stability of the industrial chain, and promote the high-end and high-quality manufacturing industry. Human society is rapidly It is developing in the direction of digitalization, networking, and intelligence. Under this trend, STEP, which represents the integration of "three modernizations", will surely move forward." Gidefa said.

In the "318 Enterprise Development Strategy" recently planned by STEP, the group will position its future development as a supplier of core products and comprehensive solutions in the professional field of intelligent drive control, among which, it places high expectations on the motion control segment. Towards the unified goal set by the group, the STEP motion control sector will definitely focus on innovative servo drive and control technology, combine vertical industry applications with parallel market operations, and bring high-quality drive and control product experience and experience to the vast industrial automation market . The ultimate solution to build "STEP (STEP)", a well-known domestic intelligent control drive brand.